IRELAND manager Carla Ward has told her players not to be afraid to make mistakes as they face Slovenia tonight.
The Girls in Green will look to make it two wins out of two in the UEFA Nations League after beating Turkiye 1-0 in Ward’s first game in charge on Friday night.
Kyra Carusa scored the winner just before half-time but Ireland did not press home the advantage as they failed to register a shot in the second half against the defensive Turks.
Ward acknowledged there is a lot of room for improvement but is confident that the players will adapt to her 4-3-3 system and tactics.
But she said they must believe in themselves, and not be afraid to try things even if they do not come off.
Ward told RTE: “It’s my job to get these guys to believe. Like I keep saying, they’re good footballers, good people, we want to make sure that they feel comfortable, confident.
“We dominated the ball, we dominated every stat and I think it’s important that we can continue to talk about those moments.
“Because the more they can believe they can take the ball, that they can play, that they have our backing, that if they make mistakes then that’s okay… it’s my job to try and calm that chaos.
“It’s something we’ve done a bit of work on in the last couple of days. The system will never change with me.
“I have a very clear way of playing, the players can see that.
“It’s trying to continue getting those messages in but we are going to try and look at something that will allow us to create more because we didn’t create enough (on Friday).
“We looked at it, five shots in the first half, none in the second. That’s an area that we’ve focused a lot of our work on the last couple of days both on and off the pitch.”
Slovenia also won their opening Nations League clash, beating Greece. And Ward insisted it is a much tougher game than the Turkiye match.
She said: “I think this type of game will be better than the game against Turkey. Why? Because you’ve got two teams who want to play football.
“There will be spaces that open up which naturally makes for a better game. It’ll be a very different game but it will be a tough game because they’ve got an abundance of quality.”
